


don't expect me to play fair

by peterpan_in_neverland



Category: Never Have I Ever (TV)
Genre: F/M, theres no plot, this is truly just my two worlds colliding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25406119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterpan_in_neverland/pseuds/peterpan_in_neverland
Summary: The first night, it is tulips.They are multicoloured, dark purples and reds staining the edge of the petals and bleeding into the walls of them, crisscrossing and striping over the curve of the petals. There is no note. Eleanor leans in and smells them, savours the spice they give off, then looks around on her vanity and on the floor to see if the note dropped somewhere.She finds nothing.-OR; Eleanor is getting anonymous flowers after every performance on her first Broadway show.
Relationships: Paxton Hall-Yoshida/Eleanor Wong
Comments: 9
Kudos: 26





	don't expect me to play fair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldcarnations](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldcarnations/gifts).



> I went feral, my God, I am so sorry. I cant express to you all how unproofread and how unhinged and how plotless this truly is.
> 
> Thank you to my dear Cori for enabling me and for Bhargavi, Leila, and Maggie for putting up with my mysterious attitude the past few days
> 
> I hope you enjoys

The first night, it is tulips. 

They are multicoloured, dark purples and reds staining the edge of the petals and bleeding into the walls of them, crisscrossing and striping over the curve of the petals. There is no note. Eleanor leans in and smells them, savours the spice they give off, then looks around on her vanity and on the floor to see if the note dropped somewhere.

She finds nothing.

She has gotten plenty of flowers in the past few days;  _ Amélie: A New Musical  _ starring Eleanor Wong opened on Broadway exactly seven days ago, and almost anyone she’s ever interacted with has sent her some form of congratulations. 

This, though, is the first one to spark a mystery, and she can already feel herself falling into the beauty of it, limbs tangling into the netting of adventure.

Eleanor sticks her head out of her dressing room, looking up at down the hall. “Rebecca?” she calls, then walks out. “Rebecca, where are you?” 

“I’m doing my  _ job,  _ Eleanor,” Rebecca's voice floats from Alyse’s dressing room, and Eleanor follows it. There is always an almost dream-like quality to wandering through the halls, backstage, at the Water Kerr theatre, like she has stepped into the apex of her life. She hopes it never ends. 

Rebecca is kneeling on the ground fixing a rip running along the hemline of Alyse’s skirt, a few pins in her mouth. “Did you see who brought me flowers?” 

“Someone brought you flowers?” Alyse asks, quirking her eyebrows up. She still has her microphone tucked into the part in her hair, and the furrows in her forehead brush against it. 

“Emphasis on  _ someone—  _ there’s no note,” Eleanor tells them, sitting down heavily on Alyse stool, “who could it  _ be?”  _

“Someone who doesn’t know how to write,” Rebecca deadpans, and sticks a pin through Alyse’s skirt. 

“Rebecca!” Alyse scolds, and Eleanor watches her roll her eyes before looking up at Alyse sweetly. Alyse clicks her tongue, and taps her fingers on the underneath of Rebecca's chin. “I can never be mad at you.” 

Eleanor knows, when she catches Rebecca's eye, that she hated every second of that. Alyse is affectionate, running her hands over people's shoulders and brushing her arms against them whoever she can, and she seems to enjoy showering affection over Rebecca in particular. Rebecca, if anything, tolerates it.

“I’m serious, ladies,” Eleanor says, and picks up a bottle of perfume on Alyse’s vanity, uncapping it and smelling it, then spraying it and leaning forward, into the mist. “Who could it be?” 

“What kind of flowers were they?” Rebecca asks, talking around the pins in her mouth. Alyse scrunches her eyebrows together. 

“Tulips— but really pretty ones. A bunch of colours, like a rainbow.” 

“It’s one of your friends,” Rebecca says, and Alyse nods. 

“What?” 

“Tulips are a friend flower.” 

_ “What?”  _ Alyse and Eleanor ask, at the same time. 

“I just agreed because tulips are cheap,” Alyse admits. 

“My friends aren’t  _ cheap.”  _ They aren’t: Devi sent her a huge cupcake arrangement in the shape of an  _ E,  _ and Fabiola, being extremely in character, built her an automated organizer for her stage makeup. Ben, even, wrote her a long letter about how proud he is and commissioned a themed picture frame. 

_ “Anyway,”  _ Rebecca interrupts, threading a needle, “tulips are flowers you get for a friend— lilies are for casual daters, and roses are for full blown romance.” 

“No offense,” Eleanor interrupts, swatching a palette of eyeshadow she finds on Alyse’s vanity— it’s a bad habit, poking through everyone’s things, but she has always done it, and no one seems to mind— the first colour is a pretty red, and she realizes vaguely that it is the same colour as one of her tulips, “but that sounds like bullshit. Devi sent me roses.” 

Rebecca holds her hands up innocently, then leans back down to thread the starter stitch through Alyse’s skirt. Eleanor registers, dimly, that Rebecca doesn’t put up a fight, and that is strange. Whatever you say, Eleanor.” 

* * *

“You got her the flowers, didn’t you?” Rebecca asks, first thing, walking into Paxton’s apartment. She had decided to forego going straight home to Cameron and his promised homemade spaghetti, because interrogations beat carbs, every time. Especially when she is interrogating her little brother over a poorly considered decision.

“What makes you say that?” he is sipping out of a long necked bottle of beer, the ends of his hair dripping with water while his voice drips with indifference. Rebecca groans— she knows this mood on him, this behaviour, a cocktail of reckless, headstrong, and blind. He only ever makes bad decisions when he is like this, and the tulips Eleanor had shown her (white petals dashed with colour like pale skin with pigment) seem like the gateway leading to an orchard of poor choices and unripe considerations.

“Because I  _ know  _ you, douchebag,” Rebecca says, and tosses her purse aside, snatching the beer out of his hand and emptying it down the sink. “What is  _ wrong  _ with you?” 

“What the hell, Becca?” 

“What the hell me? What the hell you, Paxton!” she considers, for a moment, smashing the end of the beer bottle, just to make a point, before realizing that would make her seem completely unhinged. She tosses it into his trash can instead. “You can’t do stuff like this— toying with your friend like that.” 

“I’m not toying with her.” 

“You sent her anonymous flowers, Paxton,” Rebecca says, leaning against the kitchen counter and running a hand over her face. “That’s, like, entry number one in the things you don’t do to your friends.” 

“You don’t even know if I’m doing it.” 

“Paxton,” Rebecca says, and moves forward, cupping his face in her hands, “I know everything, but most importantly, I know  _ you.”  _

“I have no clue who sent her the tulips.” 

For a second, Rebecca thinks she has caught him out, tripped him up in his lie, triggered the giveaway. But, then he smirks, one corner of his mouth tilted up, and she knows he did it on purpose. That he  _ wants  _ her to know. 

“Just tell her it’s you, Paxton.”

“Why would I do that,” he begins, measured, and shakes her hands from his face, “if we have no clue who it is?” 

* * *

“No one noticed, Savvy, don’t worry about it,” Eleanor comforts, leaning back against the chair in Savvy’s dressing room. 

Savvy plays the childhood version of Eleanors character, Amélie, and she is in the quirky, knobby kneed and crooked smiles phase of childhood, nervous about everything. Today, though, she had dropped the copper spyglass when she tried to hand it to Eleanor, and one of the stagehands told her that, after Savvy exited, she cried backstage. 

Eleanor sees herself in Savvy, even if it is a little ridiculous. She tries to rationalize that she only feels that way because Savvy plays her younger self, but she can’t shake the feeling that she actually  _ cares  _ about the kid. 

“Are you sure?” She is swiping a large makeup brush back and forth over her palm, and Eleanor knows it is a nervous habit. 

“Positive, Sav. Plus, shit happens on Broadway  _ all  _ the time— my first high school performance, I sneezed in the middle of my solo.” 

_ “No.”  _

“Yes,” Eleanor says, nodding. She thinks it’s funny now, but at the time, she was one more mistake short of wanting to die. “I’m  _ sure _ it’s fine.” 

“Thanks, Ellie.” Savvy is the only person in the world that is allowed to call Eleanor that— she wanted a nickname for her that rhymed with her own name. 

“You’re welcome.” 

“And  _ I’m _ positive you’ll figure out who sent you those mystery tulips,” Savvy declares, crossing her arms over her chest with confidence, and Eleanor falters. Did someone  _ tell _ her? “What, you thought I wouldn’t find out?” 

“No, just— how  _ did  _ you find out?” she asks. “Are you just magnitudes sneakier than you let on?” 

“The crew and I don’t keep secrets,” Savvy answers, which Eleanor knows means she wouldn’t tell her the truth for anything. 

“Alright.” She gets up and squeezes Savvy’s face between her hands, ignoring her drawn out groan. 

She walks to her dressing room, absorbed in thought, and doesn’t even notice them until she feels a leaf brush against her arm.

Sunflowers. 

This should be impossible, delivering flowers— into the empty glass vase Eleanor keeps on her desk— backstage at a Broadway theatre without anyone seeing who leaves them. 

She smells them; they don’t have any specific scent, just a fresh smell that reminds Eleanor vaguely of the produce department in the grocery store, but she likes them, nonetheless. She sifts through the petals, moving them gently and pushing leaves to the side, pollen dropping from the centers and staining her fingers. There is, again, no note, and Eleanor huffs in frustration.

She wants to think of it like a mystery, she really does. She had loved the Nancy Drew books growing up, loved the mysteries and the secrets and the search for clues. She loved thinking like a detective, trying to solve mysteries right along with Nancy. This, though, has no clues, no notes, no details, and it is infuriating. 

She lets her mind wander idly, daydreaming about who it could be. Someone with access to the theatre— a crew member, maybe, but then she remembers her short lived high school romance with Oliver— and pushes any thoughts of a secret admirer in the crew from her mind. 

She lands, completely unbidden, on Paxton. 

It hits her with the force of a tidal wave and drags her under, the sand scratching her skin and all she can think about is what it would feel like if Paxton were to slide his hands down the length of her arms. Are his hands calloused? How long does the scent of chlorine linger in his hair? How long would he let his lips linger on her neck—

She can't do this.

There is history there. There are goldfinches and ferris wheels and french fries with mayonnaise and this… she can't do this. 

She considers, for just a moment giving the flowers to Savvy. But, then, the thought that Paxton bought them for her-- he didn’t he didn’t he didn’t it isn't true or possible or real-- flits across her mind, and she pictures him, now, strolling through a florists before deciding on sunflowers, and she never wants to look at anything else.

* * *

She gets four more bouquets before she finally lets the story slip to her friends. 

They are on a FaceTime call together, Fabiola talking quickly about her latest robot build (it throws footballs, and the idea of a robot being able to do a task like that when Eleanor cannot makes her feel a specific sense of unease she only feels when watching zombie apocalypse movies) and Devi interjecting with stories about Ben and their cats, when Devi says the bouquet of pink hydrangeas on Eleanors side table looks pretty, and she feels herself freeze.

“Where’d you get them, El?” Devi asks, leaning forward. She has gotten bangs since the last time they have been on a FaceTime call together, and Eleanor wants to deflect, make some generic and repeated joke about her bangs, but instead she bites her bottom lip in between her teeth and shrugs.

“Someone got them for you?” Fabiola asks, curious, and Eleanor can hear Eve let out a low  _ oooooh _ from somewhere off screen.

“Tell Eve to be quiet.” 

Fabiola scoffs. “Tell her yourself.” 

“That feels ethically wrong.” 

“Who got you the flowers?” Devi interrupts, half shouting. She has a hand over her forehead, eyes darting between Fabiola and Eleanor on screen. 

“I’m not exactly sure,” Eleanor admits, and shifts on the couch so the hydrangeas are no longer in view. 

“A mystery flower delivery?” Fabiola asks.

“It appears that way,” Eleanor says, then bites her lip. She hates this, hates having kept a secret from her friends for so long, and to only be telling it now because Devi noticed the flowers. 

“Oh my God, tell us everything, El!” Devi exclaims, pushing her bangs out of her eyes and leaning in towards the camera. 

Eleanor reads people. It is what she does— she thinks that it is probably a byproduct of being an abandoned only child, she is constantly searching for something in other people that she can’t get from her parents, can't get from herself— and she can tell, now, that Devi is a little upset with her. 

She doesn’t blame Devi, not even in the slightest. She is upset with herself, actually. It would not have been that hard to tell them what is going on, but something about keeping it for herself (and, the theatre, apparently), made it seem special. Intimate. Eleanor is a public figure, now, and having something just for herself, something the news can’t get a hold of, is refreshing.

That, and the buried hopes of Paxton— and the thought of telling Devi any of that— feels out of the question. Feels evil, almost, the exact opposite of the person she has always worked to be. The exact opposite of the right thing to do.

“Someone has been giving me flowers without notes after each show,” she explains, quick, glossing over the desperation to discover the sender, “there’s never been a note, but, they’re nice flowers, so I’ve kept them.” 

“Why haven’t you tried to figure out who’s sending them?” Eve asks, leaning in frame. Her hair is purple now, and it seems fitting. Eve's voice is soft, a measured cadence, but the lilt of curiously bleeds into the syllables.

Fabiola leans her head on Eve’s shoulder, and Eleanor's heart sighs. 

Eleanor has never had that with someone, not really. She’s had dates and late night kisses and hands that linger but she has never had true intimacy, never had someone who knew her coffee order by heart, or could tell when she needed a shoulder to lean on. She had never been in love, in the dizzying, all encompassing kind of way. The people she has dated have never been her first choice, not really. There were always people she would go to before she would go to them, and one of them is Paxton. 

He keeps showing up. 

He has become tangled up in her, like a scarf she can’t unravel, and it is starting to worry her. It worries her even more that they haven’t talked in awhile— since before  _ Amélie  _ opened, really— and the feeling is still growing stronger. She wonders, idly, what it would feel like in her chest if she called him, if she heard his voice. Relief? Or something deeper? 

“I have,” Eleanor tells her, sighing and leaning back into her couch, pushing any fantasies and daydreams and wishes about Paxton and flower petals from her mind, “but, since there’s not a note, it’s hard— plus, it’s been different flowers every time.” 

“Seriously?” Devi asks, eyebrows raised. “Ugh, Ben needs to take a page out of this guys book.” 

_ “Devi.”  _

“What? He does!” 

“I feel like I have to be the rational one and point out that we have  _ no  _ idea who this person is,” Fabiola says, and Eve nods, purple hair falling into her eyes, “they could be, like, crazy.” 

“Fab, don’t say that!” Devi protests. 

Fabiolas words are the ink that blackens the fantasy. 

It was something good before, something whimsical and dreamy, something with ivy and tulle and sunshine, but now… now it feels dangerous and ugly, and Eleanor can feel heat rising in her throat. 

“I have to go,” she says, before she can reconsider it, and exits out of the call, closing her laptop. She could be getting the flowers from a stalker or a crazed fan, and the thought of it is overwhelming. 

She finds Rebecca's contact in her phone before she’s even fully decided to call her, and the dial tone snaps her back to herself. 

“What’s up, Eleanor?” Rebecca answers, and Eleanor sighs, her shoulders drooping. 

“What if they’re crazy?” she shouts, before she can stop herself. 

“What?” Rebecca sounds completely bewildered, and Eleanor can clearly picture her face: scrunched eyebrows and an open mouthed frown, her nose wrinkled. “Who the hell are you talking about?” 

“The person sending me the flowers!” Her heart beats  _ Paxton, Paxton, Paxton.  _

“Crazy people don’t send flowers, they show up— in person— with plastic knives sharpened to a point or guns and bullets,” Rebecca says, an air of confidence that Eleanor assumes means this is supposed to make her feel better. It does, almost, a little bit, but not enough.

“It’s just—” 

“Plus, no one would be able to get through security, anyway,” Rebecca tells her, “this is your first Broadway job, but it isn’t mine. No one gets backstage that isn’t supposed to be there.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Positive.” 

“And you’re sure the person sending these isn't, like, a murderer?” Eleanor asks, and hears Rebecca groan. “Like, I’m not going to be found dead in a pool of blood in my dressing room?” 

“Of  _ course  _ not, what is  _ wrong  _ with you?” 

“I’m just scared.” 

“You were thrilled and intrigued seven bouquets ago,” Rebecca points out, and Eleanor hears a clatter in the background, like someone has dropped a pan, “Goddammit— we’re going to have to finish this up fast, the cat is rebelling.” 

“I was thrilled, but then Fabiola—” 

“Oh, God,  _ Fabiola,  _ of course,” Rebecca groans. 

“What does  _ that  _ mean?” 

“You may not realize this, because you never realize  _ anything—”  _

“Hey!” 

“What? You don’t!” Rebecca defends, and another crash sounds in the background, and someone— Cameron, probably, based on the tone— shouts. “Listen, Fabiola is really protective over you and Devi, and she always wants to make sure you’re okay— she’s a mom friend, and she’s just mom-ing you by saying your secret florist is crazy.” 

“How would you know any of that?” Eleanor asks. She knows that Rebecca is right, but she is curious by nature and, until now, Eleanor has assumed that Rebecca's interactions with Fabiola have been limited. 

“Because she yelled at Paxton the night he took you home drunk and took care of you— listen, I have to go, I’m sorry,” Rebecca says quickly, “I hope this helped, or made you feel a little better.” She hangs up with a click, and Eleanor throws herself backwards onto the sofa. 

She tries not to think about that night with Paxton, because thinking about that night with Paxton makes her think about things that will never be finished. It— they, her and Paxton, Paxton and her— will never reach a satisfying ending, a total conclusion, an oblivion or an absolution, they will never have it. They will remain unfinished. They are Zeno's Paradox, and they will always be halfway there. 

Eleanor gasps, and sits up, putting a hand to her chest. 

_ She is being Nino Quincampoix’d.  _

* * *

“You have to tell her.” 

“Tell who what?” Paxton asks, casual arrogance, and Rebecca wants to lunge through the phone and strangle him. 

“She thinks she’s getting the flowers from some crazy person who wants to murder her— she called me twenty minutes ago, in a panic about it,” Rebecca tells him, and hopes for a reaction— a real one, not one of his muted, smoothed over, carefully hemmed responses that he’s been giving. 

“What do you want me to do, Becca, show up at her apartment and tell her I still care?” Paxton asks, an edge in his voice, and even though she was hoping for a reaction, the big sister part of her that exists in front of the  _ get shit done  _ part aches.

“For starters, yeah, I do,” she tells him, and hears a heavy sigh, the kind filled with history.

“I can’t do that, Rebecca.” 

“Why not? What happened between you two?” 

“It just didn’t work out.” 

“You don’t do this when things don’t work out— you pick someone else and you move on— why haven’t you done that with Eleanor?” 

Paxton sighs, and Rebecca can tell that she has unlocked something new in him. He has always confused her, at least a little bit, with hard to uncover truths and hidden feelings, and Rebecca isn’t a mind reader, no matter how much she likes to pretend she is. The only way to know what is going on with Paxton is to get him to tell her, and that has the same success rate as a brain transplant.

“Have you ever met someone and just… they make the world make sense?” Paxton asks, and Rebecca wants to say  _ yes, of course I have, and that person is Cameron,  _ but the same deep seated big sister part of her that knew when Paxton broke his arm when he was eleven knows, now, that he needs to be uninterrupted. “She asked me what my favourite colour was, at almost two in the morning and I told her and then I told her why and I think it changed me, forever, even if it’s only a little bit.” 

“And that scares you?” Rebecca guesses, because, if Paxton is anything, he is afraid. He is a bundle of contradictions, really. Fearless but afraid, quiet but loud, smart but not studious, and Rebecca knows that it causes him many more problems than he lets on.

“Yeah,” he admits, half a whisper from silent, then adds, “Eleanor made me feel alive. I don’t know how she did it, but, God, she did.” 

“Oh.” There is no real way to confront this, to dissect and diagnose it, to measure it out into palatable doses and make it easier to feel. 

“She doesn’t have a favourite flower,” he says, “that’s why I always send her something different.” 

“That’s sweet, Paxton, but maybe you should send her something with a  _ note.”  _

* * *

Her blood is filled with champagne bubbles. 

She feels heady. Wreckless. Hard to challenge and harder to beat because this, the note in between her fingers, feels like the real beginning of the end to the mystery. 

_ I saw you on opening night. You were fantastic _

It feels like a love letter. She has never gotten one of those before. 

It’s ridiculous, really, to feel this confident that she can unravel the details with just one note, tucked inside a bouquet of gladioli (monochromatic shades of blood red), and Eleanor is sure that Rebecca would call her idiotic and Fabiola would drop a long, fancy word, like  _ braggadocio,  _ but she feels on top of the world. 

The feeling drops away, though, when she remembers that Paxton was not there on opening night. 

He hasn’t even been there, once— she gets it, tickets are expensive, and he has been in an almost symbolic stand still since graduating college, with a plethora of odd jobs paying minimum wage, and that means Broadway tickets aren’t a priority— but the knowledge of Paxton’s elimination from the ever shrinking suspect pool seems to pierce through her. 

She tapes the card to her mirror, and resolves not to think about it. 

* * *

“You need to come see the show,” Eleanor says, dipping a fry in her cup of ketchup, “I think you’d like it.” 

“Tickets are expensive, Eleanor,” Paxton argues, and shifts in his seat, “plus, I’m not exactly a musical theatre kind of guy.” 

“But aren’t you a watching Eleanor Wong achieving her dream kind of guy?” she shoots back, and a tingle runs up his spine. 

He’s already seen the show. 

He went on opening night, buying tickets the moment they were available, and slipping in without her noticing, back row seats in a dark corner. He isn’t really quite sure why he did it; she would have been thrilled to know he was there, if her argument now is any indication. 

“Always,” he says, and shifts in his seat, “I just don’t have the money— plus, what are the odds that I’ll actually have  _ any  _ idea of what is happening the whole time?” 

Eleanor hums. “Slim to none.” She taps her nails against the table. “But, that doesn’t mean I don’t want you there.” 

“I know.” 

“Which is why—” 

“If you pull tickets from your purse, I’ll empty my Coke over your head.” 

“I have tickets for you for tomorrow night.” 

“That’s it.” He reaches for his soda, and pulls the top off of it, before stopping and taking in Eleanors face. Her eyes are screwed closed, face crinkled up, and he laughs. Laughs for real. Laughs the way Eleanor makes him laugh. “I’m  _ kidding,  _ El.” 

“Oh, thank God.” She opens her eyes and exhales, pressing a hand to her chest. “Come over the head is not the way I want to die.” 

“I know.” 

She nods, and gets quiet, before sliding the tickets across the table, catching salt and crumbs in their path. “Tomorrow night, five p.m.” He settles his fingers over the tickets, letting the ends of his fingertips brush hers. It shoots sparks up his wrists. “Be there.” 

He nods, and tucks the tickets into his pocket. “I will.” 

* * *

“You sang the word orgasm,” he says, walking down the sidewalk with her, “you sang it  _ loud.”  _

“What other way is there to sing the word orgasm?” Eleanor jokes, and wraps her hand around a lamppost, spinning around it before falling back into stop next to him. “Is that the only part you latched onto, you perv?” 

“No, I really liked Halfway— the stuff about Zeno’s Paradox— it was good.” 

“Oh.” 

“You’re really good, Eleanor.” 

“Thanks, Paxton.” She’s quiet. Contemplative. And he can tell that she wants to tell him something, wants to talk, but doesn’t know where to start. “I don’t have a favourite flower.” 

“I know,” he says, and does not ask where she is going. If she wants to lead him there, then she will. 

“Someone’s been sending me flowers.” 

“Oh.” 

“After each show.” 

“Okay.” 

“And they’re different bouquets every time.” 

“Interesting.” 

“And tonight, they— whoever is sending them— drew a doodle of a cat on the note. In pink marker—”

—the marker is sitting on his dresser at home—

“—and I don’t get what they’re trying to say—” 

—he’s trying to say  _ I miss you, and I’m sorry—  _

“—and I don’t know what to do.” 

He rubs his hands up and down his jeans. “I don’t know either, Eleanor,” he tells her, and she frowns, kicking a rock on the sidewalk, “I’m sorry.” 

They’ll always be halfway there. 

* * *

The pink Hubba Bubba bubble tape that was sitting propped against a vase filled with dark purple irises is sitting deep in her pocket during the interview. 

It feels a little ridiculous, sitting in on an interview with Robin Roberts, at Good Morning America, for a Broadway show that’s only been open a month, but it is her life now. She is skating through the interview, answering questions and smiling and laughing, when something trips her up. 

“Which character do you think you relate to the most?” Robin asks her, the newscaster smile she is famous for sitting bright on her face, and Eleanor answers, before she can stop herself. 

“Nino, really.” 

_ Shit.  _

* * *

There are twenty four bouquets with twenty four different phone numbers sitting in her dressing room, the next night. 

All of them are roses, and none of them are him. 

* * *

It’s her own fault, really, for slipping on live television, telling Robin— stupid, trustworthy, encouraging Robin— about the flowers. She blabbed, and now it’s ruined, and now she’ll never know. 

She sits heavily in her chair and drops her face in her hands, groaning, and pushing back tears. 

“Whoa,” a voice says, and Eleanor jerks her head up, “a florist exploded in here, huh?” 

“Paxton?” Eleanor asks, raising her eyebrows. “How the hell did you get in here?” 

“My sister works here, she let me in,” he says, and shrugs, leaning casually against her door frame. 

“Why’re you here?” 

“I saw your interview,” he says, “figured I should probably come clean.” 

Cold electricity spreads through her body.  _ Him?  _

_ “What?” _

He’s biting his lips in between his teeth, fidgeting with his bracelets, and Eleanor wants to scream. He ducks out of the door, and for a split second, Eleanor thinks he has run away, all over again, before he shows back up with a bouquet of pink daisies. “Pink is still your favourite colour, right?” 

“Oh,” she breathes, and knows that she is going to kiss him before she has even gotten to her feet. 

She’s small, she knows that, barely five feet, and Paxton could touch ceilings if he jumped, but that doesn’t stop her from reaching up and curling her fingers into his hair, pulling him down to her, kissing him hard and breathless. 

“It was you,” she breathes, against his mouth, eyes half closed— she’s torn between giving into the butterflies and closing her eyes, or fluttering them open, to watch him, to see the way he looks at her, like no one else ever has before— “you were sending them.” 

“Yeah.” 

“I wanted it to be you— I hoped it was you,” she admits, and hears him groan, just a little bit, against her whispers. “Why’d you do it?” 

“I didn’t know how to tell you.” 

“You could’ve told me easily.” 

“No,” he says, and easily— frighteningly easily— lifts her up, and she locks her legs around his waist, the slamming of her door a faint sound in between their breathing and their kisses. “No, I don’t think I could have.” 

She sighs, fluttery, as he sets her down on her vanity and drops kisses against her neck. “Wait,” she says, and he stills, pulls away from her, and she misses his lips instantly, “you were there on opening night?” 

He looks at her incredulously, like there are stars in her eyes, for real, constellations and galaxies. He cups her cheek. “I was.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

He shrugs, swipes his thumb over her cheekbone, and she pushes herself further into his hand. “I figured a surprise would be better.” 

* * *

She turns the tables on him, two weeks later, and buys a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums and two orders of fries, and leaves them on his kitchen counter, and feels, just a little bit, like they have solved Zeno’s Paradox.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Leave a kudos if you enjoyed and drop a comment if you really, really enjoyed, they make my cat respect me. Thanks again!


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